It seems the Australians are in gaming hell once again: it's being reported on a number of gaming websites that Fallout 3 has effectively been banned, months ahead of its release date - apparently it's down to the game's references to the painkilling drug morphine.

Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification are refusing to classify the game, something they've not been afraid to do in the past, either: they've refused to classify a whole host of games over the years, including GTA: San Andreas, leaving gamers frustrated and having to rely on dodgy imports.

The lack of an 18 rating certificate in Australia is also blamed.

The board stated:

"In the Board's view these realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method bring the 'science-fiction' drugs in line with 'real-world' drugs," the board's report said.

"The player can also select and use 'Morphine' (a proscribed drug) which has the positive effect of enabling the character to ignore limb pain when the character's extremities are targeted by the enemy."

Thanks news.com.au